Sunday updates: Santa Rosa expands mandatory evacuation zone
5:20 a.m.: Santa Rosa expands mandatory evacuation zone
The city of Santa Rosa has issued mandatory evacuation orders for the entirety of the Northeast 2 and Northeast 3/Middle Rincon zones as the Shady fire continues to threaten the eastern part of the city.
Northeast 2 includes all areas east of Brush Creek Road, north of Montecito Boulevard, west of Calistoga road and south of the city boundary north of Badger Road.
Northeast 3/Middle Rincon includes all areas east of Mission Boulevard, north of Highway 12, south of Montecito Boulevard and west of Calistoga Road.
To check to see what evacuation zone you live in, click here.
For a map of current evacuation zones, click here.
Evacuees can go to the following locations:
Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds, 175 Fairgrounds Drive, Petaluma (accepting sheltering in cars and RVs. Not ready for congregant sheltering at this point.)
Petaluma Veterans Building, 1094 Petaluma Blvd. South, Petaluma (Temporary Evacuation Point and shelter)
Sonoma Raceway, 29355 Arnold Drive, Sonoma (Temporary Evacuation Point, car sheltering and camping)
Santa Rosa city officials have opened up a temporary evacuation point at A Place to Play park, 2375 West Third Street in Santa Rosa where residents can regroup and get help from staff who speak English or Spanish.
5:07 a.m. update: Fire crews protect Oakmont as spot fires pose challenge in Skyhawk
The Shady fire continues to spawn small spot fires in Skyhawk, where several homes have burned. Fire crews and at least one resident were moving through the neighborhood, pouncing on new starts as they sprung up.
Most of the damage on Mountain Hawk Drive was between Brigadoon Way and Night Hawk Drive. One house was burning on the north end of Mountain Hawk at Brigadoon about 4:30 a.m. Embers from that fire caused landscaping across the street to ignite, and resident Jas Sihota ran up with a long hose that he used to put out the shrub.
Sihota, who lives on Great Heron Drive, which becomes Mountain Hawk Drive where it crosses Brigadoon, moved through the neighborhood, using hoses to put out small spot fires as they erupted. He extinguished the same shrub on Brigadoon at least twice during a span of about 15 minutes.
Sihota, 49, said he was watching a football game at 8 p.m. before he came outside and “it was raining quarter-sized embers.”
“I stayed here through all the fires,” Sihota said. “But they never got this close.”
4:58 a.m. update:
By 4:30 a.m., a stretch of Highway 12 between Los Alamos Road and Oakmont Drive has transformed into an ember-strewn moonscape. The husks of vanquished trees formed clusters on both sides of the highway.
Homes along the east side of this road that connects Santa Rosa to the wine-rich Sonoma Valley were decimated.
A handful of engines and their determined crew members kept the fire from destroying any structures in the Oakmont Village retirement community, home to some 5,000 senior Santa Rosans.
Flames lapped at fences and landscaping, and they dazzled 100 feet above rooftops as they took apart the mature canopy on the north edge of this secluded community, which has its own grocery store and two golf courses.
Winds swirled but had weakened considerably by 4 a.m., making for a less daunting pace as firefighters bopped from one backyard to another, dousing flames.
A bulldozer line helped, too, chewing up would-be fire fuel and breaking up what could have been a united fire front before it got to the backside of the homes.
3:30 a.m. update: Fire crews protect homes in Piedmont Heights, St. Francis as Shady fire burns homes in east Santa Rosa
Homes in Piedmont Heights, St. Francis and other neighborhoods east of Calistoga Road and north of Highway 12 but west of Skyhawk were largely unscathed by fire as of about 3 a.m. Monday. The hills above them were heavily charred by the Shady fire and backfires set by crews to keep flames away from homes.
“I sure didn’t expect this whole mountain to go up like it did,” said David Cox, 75, who lives on Ronaldo Street and stayed behind to protect his home, which he’s lived in for about three years. He watched the hillside smolder from Montclair Drive and said he was thankful for everything firefighters did to protect homes like his.
3:11 a.m. update:
Evacuation centers are being moved from Santa Rosa to Petaluma “out of an abundance of caution,” according to county spokesman Paul Gullixson. The Santa Rosa Veterans building and the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds are closing as shelters.
Evacuees can go to the following locations:
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